


let us share the words of love

by cryptidkidprem



Series: all of my time in the world (i want you to be my one) [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Comfort, Domestic Fluff, Footnotes, M/M, Marriage Proposal, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), a perhaps over-indulgent use of pet names, an unstoppable force (crowley's countless insecurities and feelings of unlovability), meets an immovable object (aziraphale's deep and unconditional love)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-09 13:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20995814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptidkidprem/pseuds/cryptidkidprem
Summary: Crowley’s known for a long time now that he never wants to be apart from Aziraphale. It just… hadn’t really occurred to him that Aziraphale might want that too.So all of this is to say, Crowley’s kind of (completely) obsessing over the wordhusband.





	let us share the words of love

**Author's Note:**

> this is why i never write from crowley's pov cuz whenever i do a proposal fluff fic winds up with 1k of angsty introspection about crowlet's insecurities and feelings of unlovability. i mean it's still plenty fluffy because i'm Soft, but like. Yeesh i just wanna wrap crowley in a blanket and hug him for a year
> 
> title is a lyric from 'las palabras de amor' b/c frankly i can't believe i've gone this long without pilfering a title for a g.omens fic from a queen song so here we GO

It’s late summer, when the whole thing starts. A year after the world didn’t end, almost six months after Crowley and Aziraphale packed up and traded their lives in London for a seaside cottage in a quiet little South Downs village.

They’re in the garden. Not the _Garden_, but _their_ garden, the one out back of their little cottage. Almost preternaturally green, with a modest ocean view just past the salt-worn fence and a healthy landscape of windswept dunes. There’s more plants and varieties of life than any human couple could realistically care for, especially in this climate, but a demon and an angel manage just fine.

It’s something they do together, tending to the garden. Sure, Crowley’s the one who’s been keeping houseplants for the last half a century, but it didn’t take long to figure out that houseplants and gardens are different beasts entirely. Crowley can’t just menace his way to a perfect garden, and Aziraphale did spend a decade and change as a professional gardener at the Dowling’s, even if he mostly used miracles to keep his job.

In the end it’s just another excuse to spend more time together, like any other old retired couple with suddenly much more time on their hands than ever previously encountered.

Not that they need excuses anymore, but they will take any reason to spend a few extra moments around each other, like they can make up for all the moments they missed in the first six millennia they spent on Earth, together and yet _not_.

They’re not now. Gardening, that is. They’re just out in the garden because it’s a nice day; the wind has gone still, and the sky is nearly cloudless, sun shining down on their little patch of countryside and warming their home the way Aziraphale’s been warming Crowley’s soul for centuries.

And, Lord Below, what a thought. Look what a blessed a _sap_ he’s turned into. He wants to blame it all on Aziraphale, but somewhere deep down he knows he’s probably always been sappy like that, and Aziraphale just gives him a safe harbor to let it all out.

There’s a porch swing on the deck out back, and that’s where they are now; Azirapahle with a book in one hand and the other carding slowly through Crowley’s hair where he’s sprawled half in Aziraphale’s lap.

They do this inside more often than out — Aziraphale has at least one reading nook in every room of the house, each with room enough for Crowley to invade when he’s feeling clingy — but the weather’s only this gentle and forgiving a handful of days out of the year, so there’s no reason not to take advantage of it now.

It’s warm, and Aziraphale is just being so _tender_ with him Crowley’s almost sure he’s going to fall asleep out here like this. He’s already drifting off; the sun dappling his face feels a long way away, the only thing tethering him to consciousness are the fingers on his scalp.

He wouldn’t mind a nap. Aziraphale might not even notice till the light got too dim for him to keep reading, and even that’s a stretch because he might just_ let there be light_ the whole thing and go on regardless.

Yeah, he’s just decided[*](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20995814#note1) a nap’s about the only thing that could make the afternoon better when Aziraphale says, “Crowley?” and snaps him back to awareness.

Crowley peeks up at Aziraphale with one eye. “Hm?”

Aziraphale’s not looking at him, but he’s obviously not reading anymore, either. The book’s been safely put aside, tucked up against Aziraphale’s other thigh, eyes, totally unfocused, staring out towards the sea. Crowley knows this look — he knows all of Aziraphale’s _Looks_, honestly — it’s the on that means he’s fallen down some rabbit hole and gotten lost in thought.

“My dear, what _are_ we?”

Crowley blinks both eyes open. “Uh,” he starts, bewildered. “Well. Last I checked, I’m a demon, and you’re… ah, at least eighty-percent angel, probably a good twenty-percent bastard at this point, I’d say.”

Aziraphale frowns. “No, no, that’s not what I meant, you silly serpent.”

“Okay.” Crowley pushes himself up and puts a few loathsome inches of space between them so he can be face-to-face with Aziraphale. “Elaborating would help, then.”

Aziraphale turns to meet his eyes, a little crease between his brows. There’s a moment where Crowley has to resist the urge to smooth it out with a thumb or maybe even a kiss, before he remembers he doesn’t have to resist and kisses it away anyway.

Aziraphale blinks at him, but his face smoothes out and Crowley gets a soft smile for his efforts. “Oh, I suppose it’s a bit silly, but I’m just never quite sure what to _call_ you. And, before you say it, I know your name is Crowley, that’s not what I mean.”

He gives Crowley a _look_, but Crowley just tips his head to the side, waits for Aziraphale to finish.

“Humans have so many _words_ for these things, don’t they? And none of them feel right for you. For us. Calling you my _boyfriend_ just seems absurd. We’ve loved each other practically since the beginning of time, that’s not quite enough, is it? And it’s not as if I could call you my _husband_, as we’re not, well, married yet.”

“I usually just go in for partner,” Crowley volunteers.

“Yes, and that’s fine, I suppose, but sometimes it’s taken the wrong way, isn’t it? I say you’re my partner and people assume you’re my, my _business_ partner, or some such like. Try and make it seem like _less_ than what it is.”

Crowley hums in consideration. “Strange, that,” he comments, despite his mind being about a million miles away. “Humans assume we’re a couple for six-thousand years, and now that we actually _are_ one, they jump through hoops to convince themselves we’re not.”

“Quite,” Aziraphale agrees with a frown.

Crowley swallows. “Why the sudden interest in, uh, all this label business?”

“It’s hardly sudden,” Aziraphale tells him, “I’ve been thinking on it for a while now. Just wasn’t sure how to bring it up to you without, well. Sounding rather foolish.”

Crowley’s words nearly trip over themselves in his haste to get them out of his mouth. “It’s not foolish.”

Yeah, sure, sometimes they tease each other, sometimes (more than sometimes, really) they bicker, but not about anything important, anything _real_. They’ve spent so long hiding, the both of them, neither wants to do anything that’ll spook the other into withdrawing, risk losing even a little piece of the other. “I don’t think you’re being foolish.”

Aziraphale’s face goes all soft. “That’s very kind of you, my dear,” he says, and Crowley is quite proud that he only squirms a little bit.

“Watch it. Demon can get in a lotta trouble, being kind to an angel,” he deflects.

“A demon can also get in a lot of trouble for falling in love with an angel. And helping an angel thwart Armageddon. A demon _did_, as a matter of fact,” Aziraphale reminds him, with the hitch of an eyebrow. “So did an angel. Yet, here we both sit.”

Crowley nods. “Fair enough,” he says, and leans in to kiss Aziraphale, all those labels for love and how it all applies to them forgotten for the time being.

—

Aziraphale said the word husband, and the weird thing is, Crowley absolutely cannot stop thinking about it.

He just, just _said it_, threw it out there without a care in the world, more casual than when he talks about tomorrow’s dinner plans. He just said it, and he just. Well, he implied… something about _them_.

Aziraphale said he can’t call Crowley his husband only because they’re not married, which, yeah, makes sense, but he said it like calling Crowley his husband is something he’s thought about, something he’s… not averse to.

And, okay, the thing about Crowley is, he’s a bloody coward. Er, well, maybe not a coward, maybe that’s not fair, not the right word — Crowley’s gotten pretty good at facing his fears over the millennia. He’s had to, hasn’t he?

But he does _have_ fears, is the issue. A whole sodding lot of them. He’s quite terrified, actually, all the time, of everything and nothing, and.

He’s not and has never been afraid of Aziraphale, but he is afraid that.

That.

He doesn’t even like to think it, but sometimes he can’t quite stop himself.

It’s not like he thinks Aziraphale doesn’t love him; he _knows_ Aziraphale loves him. Even without that weird angel love-detecting aura or, or whatever the Heaven it is that gives Aziraphale the ability to sense love, he can feel the way Aziraphale loves him. So he doesn’t doubt that he’s.

— _he swallows_ —

That he _is_ loved.

It’s just, sometimes he wonders _why_.

And that has always been Crowley’s issue, hasn’t it? Can’t stop fucking prodding at things, can’t stop asking _why?_

So, yes, yeah, okay, he’s _scared_. He’s scared of losing the best thing to ever happen to him, scared that someday Aziraphale’s going to wake up and realize what a great big _mistake_ he’s making shacking up with Crowley like this.

And, c’mon, who could blame him? There’s just this, this ugly little running theme in Crowley’s life. He can’t seem to find anyone who wants to keep him around, keeps getting kicked to the curb like some undesirable stray animal. Even _Hell_ didn’t want him around, so he just has to wonder, what does that say about him?

He keeps getting his own love and curiosity and wonder thrown back in his face, and he gets the message, he got it a while ago, really, and by now he’s mostly made his peace with the fact that he’s not—

Okay.

For the record, Crowley doesn’t miss Heaven. He feels that is important to note, even now, to himself, when he’s being all twisty inside like this. He’d be miserable as an angel, and he and Gabriel probably would’ve killed each other within a century if they’d ever been forced to spend any prolonged periods of time together as coworkers.

So. Doesn’t miss heaven, doesn’t miss being an angel, doesn’t regret Falling (even if he never meant to in the first place), but sometimes he thinks he misses—

Fuck.

It’s just that… When a being whose _love_ encompasses _all of Creation_ decides She doesn’t love you anymore, when She rips Her love right out of your chest and tosses you into the Pits without so much as a by-your-leave, it kind of.

Erm. It stings a little, saunter or no.

So, really, when it comes down to it, if he’s not good enough to be loved by the one being who’s supposed to love _literally_ _everything_, it’s not so much of a stretch to think.

To think one day he might do something to wake Aziraphale up to the fact that he’s really just not worth loving, that one day he’ll lose _Aziraphale’s_ love, too.

And that would be. That would be…

Point. Right. The point is, Crowley doesn’t think he could stand that.

But then Aziraphale said _husband_, like spending the rest of his life — the rest of _forever_, which is a concept even Crowley, who’s been alive since before the concept of Time was even a thing that existed, has trouble wrapping his head around sometimes — with Crowley is something he wouldn’t mind.

And, okay, so marriage is a very human invention, and maybe to any other angel it wouldn’t mean anything, but to _Aziraphale_? He and Crowley may not be _humans_, but at this point they’re more _Human_ than not, and Crowley knows he doesn’t take human things lightly.

It means plenty to them. Maybe it means more to them because, again, the whole till death do we part thing does not apply.

Crowley’s known for a long time now that he never wants to be apart from Aziraphale. It just… hadn’t really occurred to him that Aziraphale might want that too.

So all of this is to say, Crowley’s kind of (completely) obsessing over the word _husband._[*](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20995814#note2)

This wasn’t even something he ever thought about before Aziraphale brought it up, but now it’s like. It’s like he’s suddenly realized all he wants out of this stupid post-notpocalyptic world is to marry Aziraphale, to be able to call him his husband.

Crowley’s never been much of a planner, but when this train of thought keeps him up well into the night, he starts to throw something together.

—

Crowley doesn’t usually plan things in advance, because when he does they have a tendency to go completely fucking pear-shaped. His last plan had been to try and keep the Antichrist from becoming the Antichrist, and look how that ended up.

Okay, admittedly, it ended up fine in the end, but not because of anything Crowley did. It ended up fine _because_ his plan was a total flop, because he fucked up in every conceivable way he could’ve fucked it up right from the get go.

Let the Almighty do the planning, Crowley thinks. At least when Hers go tits up everyone just blames it Ineffability and moves on.

He’s fine with just winging his way through life, as it is.

But this is Aziraphale, and if Crowley is going to—

— If he’s really going to

Oh, Someone, _Anyone_ have mercy on him. If he’s going to _propose_, if he’s going to marry the angel, he has to do it _right_.

And this is where all that fear comes in, isn’t it? Crowley’s spent most of his 6,000-plus years on this earth making snap decisions and hasty judgements because he was afraid. Afraid of losing afraid being found out afraid of.

Um.

Just _afraid_, when it comes down to it.

But this can’t be about _fear_. This is about _love_, so Crowley can’t do this like he’s done most things in his life thus far.

So he plans it out down to the last detail, with failsafes and backups in case something goes wrong (when does something not go wrong, when he’s involved?) or the weather’s a bit off (nothing a quick miracle can’t fix, but it’s still good to plan around these things just in case) or Crowley has a panic attack and chickens out (he’ll panic about it plenty, up until and quite possibly for sometime after he’s actually done it. He’s self aware enough to know that at this point).

So it’s there, it’s all in place, he’s got a plan to propose to Aziraphale.

It’s not flashy or big, because that’s not them. They are growing together and subtlety and safety and warmth. They are finding joy in all of earth’s mundanities, as long as they’re together.

Besides, the angel might catch on if Crowley goes too big with it. He’s more perceptive than he lets on, especially when it comes to Crowley.

It’s late October, now, a few months since Crowley made the decision to ask Aziraphale to marry him, and tonight’s not the night. It’s all meant to go down in just a handful of days, on the six-thousand-and-somethingth anniversary of the day they met in Eden.

So tonight’s just another night in the cottage — which is not to trivialize the nights they spend together in the cottage; Crowley, great fucking _sap_ that he has become, treasures each and every last one of them, even if he’ll never be caught saying as much out loud.

They’re having dinner together at the dark oak table in their kitchen. They even bloody cooked it themselves, because not only is that what the type of humans they pretend to be would do, it’s also what the angel and demon they really are do now that they’re allowed; have home cooked dinners and eat ‘em together and share good wine and conversations about their days.

Towards the end of the meal, when there’s a lull in conversations, Aziraphale picks up his — now empty— wine glass and frowns, just a little. He stands, moves to the kitchen counter and returns with the bottle.

“More wine, my dear?” He asks, after he’s filled his own glass.

Crowley thinks on that for a second. Just over a year ago, there wouldn’t be a thought to it. He and Aziraphale would be several bottles deep already. That was just what they did, back then. But there’s no need to use getting thoroughly smashed as an excuse to be together anymore, and he’s feeling quite pleasant at the moment.

Crowley just shrugs. “Nah,” he answers.

“Alright,” Aziraphale says, and sets the bottle aside. He takes a sip, swirls the wine in his glass as he swallows, and then slowly sets his glass aside, too. “Actually. Um. If you’re quite finished, there is something I’d like to talk with you about.”

“Oh,” Crowley sets his fork down gingerly on his plate. There’s that old twinge of anxiety, somewhere inside him, but he smothers it with a pillow and kicks into the mental equivalent of an antique chest and locks it in, firmly reminding it that it isn’t _necessary_ around here anymore. “Okay. Sure. Yeah. What’s up?”

Aziraphale shifts in his seat. Scooches closer to Crowley, and shifts again with a nervous little wiggle.

Oh, so this is serious. Crowley regards the antique chest and wonders if he wasn’t too hasty banishing that anxiety.

“Is everything alright?” He asks.

“Hm? Oh. Oh, yes,” Aziraphale takes one of Crowley’s hands off the table, holds it between both of his own, offers up a smile. “Yes, everything’s fine. Er. Everything’s quite wonderful, actually.”

“Right. Good.” Crowley nods. “Out with it, then.”

Aziraphale smiles, and it’s so fond that Crowley has to work very hard to keep his corporation from betraying him with a blush.[*](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20995814#note3) “Now, dear, this isn’t something I want to rush. Hold your horses, if you please.”

“Nnh,” is what Crowley says, but he nods again.

“Thank you.” Aziraphale’s still smiling, which does ease Crowley’s misgivings. He meets Crowley’s eyes, and the look they share is so open Crowley briefly wishes for his sunglasses.[*](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20995814#note4) “Right. So. I was saying. Well, I suppose I wasn’t saying anything, yet, but. What I was going to say is. Is,” he stammers, clears his throat.

Crowley knows his angel can be just as nervous as he is himself. He leans forwards, covers their joined hands with his free hand, gives a little squeeze. Aziraphale will get there eventually. It’s best to just give him ti—

“Oh, to—to _Somewhere_ with it,” Aziraphale’s impatient tone cuts off Crowley’s thoughts, “Crowley. My _dearest_, dearest Crowley, I want nothing more than to be by your side for the rest of our lives. And, yes, I know six-thousand years is already quite the commitment, and we aren’t even human so it might seem silly, but. This is our home, and it just feels _right_, so—”

He slips his hands away for Crowley’s so he can fish around in the pocket of the wool cardigan he’s got on, and pulls out.

A box.

A little velvet box.

Almost the color of wine. Little silver trim, just around the edges.

It’s a good thing Crowley doesn’t need to breathe, because in that moment he summarily forgets how.

There’s a second, just a fraction of time, really, where Crowley thinks time must’ve frozen. Except, no, this isn’t like that; it’s Crowley that’s frozen, as the world tumbles on just fine around him.

It’s not until Aziraphale opens his mouth to say something else that Crowley finally snaps back to reality, realizing what’s about to happen.

“Angel,” he rasps, cutting him off. “Wait.” He scrambles to his feet, holds out a finger to Aziraphale. “Stay right there. Just. Don’t move a muscle.”

And without waiting for a response, he takes off, zipping through the cottage and into the bedroom. He grabs a bromeliad off the dresser, pulling the plant, in a little brown ceramic pot out of the bigger, green plastic pot he’s been using as a false bottom.

He had it all bloody planned out, and the angel has to go and, and.

Do this.

And Crowley can’t even be mad about it, is the thing. He doesn’t even bother to try, he’s just. Whatever he’s feeling, there’s a lot of it, and it’s not anger. Even if his plans have been royally fucked, he just.

He takes a moment to lean against the dresser, gather his thoughts, because sometimes he’s still so overwhelmed by it all.

He just _loves_ Aziraphale.

He doesn’t have a pretty velvet box, just a ring lying in the bottom of a planter. He figured this would be the only place Aziraphale wouldn’t accidentally stumble across it before Crowley could get to the actual proposing.

He hadn’t accounted for Aziraphale buying his own blessed ring.

It’s okay, though. It’s okay! Crowley’s great at improvising.

He gives the bromeliad a nasty look and hurries back to Aziraphale.

He finds the angel still frozen in place at the table, but judging by the look on his face Crowley figures that’s more from surprise than anything Crowley said.

Whatever, he’ll take it.

He unfreezes when Crowley returns, though the look on his face is beyond baffled. “My dear boy—”

But Crowley cuts him off, slipping back into his seat. “No, just wait,” he says, “you were the one who asked me to move in, I’m the one who gets to propose.”

Aziraphale blinks, and then Crowley sees what looks like every emotion the human face is capable of flash by in under a second. He seems to settle on… that unbearable fondness that makes Crowley’s tongue forget to behave itself and his heart do things that would alarm any cardiologist.

“Alright,” Aziraphale finally says, “Fair enough. Go on, then.”

“Right.” Crowley fidgets. Now he has to actually. Do it. Say the words.

Shit. Maybe he should’ve just let Aziraphale do it first, after all. “Um,” he starts, eloquent as ever, “you know. I had a whole thing planned out, for this. Was gonna take you into London. To the Ritz. Maybe a walk in the park, after. Make a whole evening out of it,” he explains, tongue tripping over the words just a bit.

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” he tries for a smile, but it comes out more like a grimace. Dam— fucking nerves. “Had it all planned out.”

“Yes, you said that,” Aziraphale reminds him gently, and a little smugly. _Bastard_.

Crowley frowns. “I just wanted it all to be perfect,” he admits.

And Aziraphale visibly softens. “Oh, Crowley. Please don’t worry. I don’t need _perfect_, I just _need_ you.”

“But you _deserve_ perfect,” Crowley protests. “It should be— It’s—”

“It’s you, dear.” Aziraphale puts his hand on Crowley’s cheek. “And it’s us, spending our lives together. That’s plenty perfect on its own.”

“Fuck. _Fuck_,” Crowley’s really not sure how the humans survive the whole falling in love fiasco with what his heart is doing right now. He opens his palm, shoving the ring unceremoniously towards Aziraphale. “Yeah. Okay. I should probably do some kind of. Speech, or something, but we both know I’m not so good with the words, so will you just marry me, angel?”

And Aziraphale’s never been so good with words, either, but and Crowley speak their own language, so he answers by pulling Crowley’s face towards him and kissing him.

For a moment it’s just this, just this kiss, and then Aziraphale draws back, beaming like he swallowed the sun. “_Of course_ I will, Crowley.”

Crowley can’t help it, he beams right back at Aziraphale. “Yeah?”

Another kiss. “Yes.”

Aziraphale takes the ring from Crowley’s open hand, slips it carefully on his finger, and admires it.

It fits — not that it would even _dare_ do anything else. Crowley had been _very_ clear with it when he’d forged it together from the same raw material inside himself he used to build stars out of. It would fit perfectly; be snug but not too tight, comfortable without even thinking of falling off, or it would be _sorry_.

It catches and glints in the light, and the sight of it there, on Aziraphale’s finger, is brighter and more beautiful than any constellation Crowley ever spun into creation. He knows angels can sense love, and he hopes Aziraphale can feel all the love Crowley poured into this one little object.[*](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20995814#note5)

“Oh!” Aziraphale starts, starling Crowley a bit along with him. “My turn.” He takes up the little velvet box, forgotten until now, and gently pries it open. “I just went to a jewelry store, I didn’t fashion it out of, of—”

“Hydrogen[*](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20995814#note6), mostly. I think.”

“— As you apparently did,” Aziraphale babbles. “But, well, I suppose it will have to do.”

“Oi. Nuh-uh,” Crowley says, “this goes both ways, yeah? It’s perfect because it’s _you_.”

And he takes the box from Aziraphale and snags the ring himself before Aziraphale can really get himself worked up into a good self-conscious bluster.

Crowley thinks the only thing he’s held in his hands more precious than this is Aziraphale himself, and he has to will his fingers not to tremble so he doesn’t cock everything up and drop the sodding thing.

Carefully, he slips the ring on, and then there’s another moment where every atom in his body goes completely still.

Finally, as he stares down at his hands, his left hand, with a silver band resting snug on his finger that means more than he can really properly put into words, Crowley blinks, just the once.

And then he blinks again.

And then, when that doesn’t work, he swipes at his eyes with his other hand.

“Oh, goodness,” Aziraphale says.

Crowley catches Aziraphale’s hand in the air as he reaches towards him, and squeezes just a smidge too hard. “It’s just,” he starts, and it’s hard for him to meet Aziraphale’s eyes, but it’s _impossible_ to look away. “Do you realize what this means?”

“I’m certainly hoping it means we’re to be married. That you’re to be my husband, and I yours.”

Crowley nods, swallows against a lump in his throat. “Yeah, but. When the humans do this, it’s. It’s _till death do we part_, it’s for the rest of their lives, it’s. A bunch of things that usually wind up meaning about sixty years, tops. But with you and me, it really means. It means—” He forces himself to take a breath— “We’re _immortal_, angel. Eternal. We’re never going to die, there’s no convenient out. This actually _means_ forever. You’d be. You’d be stuck with me—”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale stops him, pulling his hand free so he can take Crowley’s face between both his hands. “Don’t say things like that, please. You have to realize— you must know by now—”

He sighs, almost weary, shutting his eyes to collect his thoughts.

“Last year, the world almost ended. For the first time in six millennia I had to contemplate an existence _without you_, and it terrified me more than I knew how to deal with. I don’t want to be apart from you, ever. Married or no, I want to be by your side. _Forever_.” The angel’s thumbs have started doing that _thing_ that makes Crowley melt just a little bit, grazing feather-light over his cheekbones. Crowley’s hands wind around his wrists and hold him there. “I’ll never be _stuck_ with you, Crowley. I want nothing more than to spend my eternity with you.”

Aziraphale definitely catches a few tears on his thumbs, but mercifully doesn’t say anything about it.

“Angel,” Crowley starts, and that’s about as much as he manages to get out. He tries again, but doesn’t make it much further this time. “Aziraphale.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale responds, “my dear.”

“Maybe,” Crowley finally says, making a desperate grab to lighten the mood, “maybe it’s best this happened now. Would’a been embarrassing blubbering all over the place like this at the Ritz.”

Aziraphale makes a noise low in his throat, and instead of saying anything, he pulls Crowley close and holds onto him, a hand in his hair and the other tightening around his shoulders.

Crowley’s breath catches, and then comes out in one long, slow exhale as he folds himself into Aziraphale’s grip, snaking his arms around his back.

Relief washes through him like rain. Not the frightening kind, like the first even rainstorm in Eden, or the abysmal kind, like the storm that brought the Flood. More like the scattered summer showers their little vegetable patch outside so appreciates; gentle, heartening, maybe a little bit of a shock in the best way.

“I love you,” Aziraphale reminds him.

“I love you,” Crowley tells him, boneless in their embrace.

When they finally break apart, some indeterminable amount of time later, Aziraphale smiles, and Crowley returns it.

“We’re not having a church wedding,” Crowley says, before he can fall victim to another fit of softness and get all weepy again.

Aziraphale chuckles. “Oh, are you sure? I think it might be rather delightful to see you dancing down the aisle again.”

“Cheeky bastard,” is Crowley’s response to that.

Aziraphale kisses him, just a quick peck on the corner of his mouth. “No churches,” he assures Crowley warmly, with a little pat on his shoulder. “I don’t care where we’re married, dearest. It only matters that it’s you and I, together.”

“That is the important bit,” Crowley agrees, soft around the edges and so, so full of love. “Always has been, yeah?”

The answering look Aziraphale sends him is just as soft, just as smitten. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

* * *

* _Decide_ might be a strong word choice; mostly he just stops fighting the pull of unconsciousness. [↑](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20995814#top1)

* He doesn’t know, has no way of knowing, yet, but he’s not alone in this; not the only one who started _thinking_, after that conversation. [↑](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20995814#top2)

* He is _not_ successful. [↑](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20995814#top3)

* He doesn’t like to wear them when they’re alone in the cottage. Even the type of human Crowley pretends to be wouldn’t wear sunglasses around his own bloody cottage where he’s retired with the love of his life. That’s not even kind of _cool_, that’s just _pretentious_. [↑](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20995814#top4)

* He can, but just barely, as the love he’s felt from Crowley himself has been so strong as to down out almost every other source of love around him for the last few millennia. [↑](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20995814#top5)

* The more scientifically savvy might recall that hydrogen at these temperatures and unbound is typically a _gas_ rather than a solid, and as such is not ideal ring-making material. But Crowley was _there_ when the laws of physics were written. He knows all the loopholes, and even if he didn’t, he’s always been a rule breaker, so he if wants to propose to his angel with an engagement ring made out of stars, then his angel is _getting_ a bloody ring made out of stars. [↑](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20995814#top6)

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading ! hope u enjoyed ! feel free to come find me on [tumblr](https://lovesickcrowley.tumblr.com/) if u want !


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